Fact-checking on ND history with M

Has anyone read John Kryk's book "Natural Enemies: The Notre Dame-Michigan Football Feud"?

Notre Dame blog One Foot Down is citing the book as the source for a history post that basically says Yost was a complete a**hole to Notre Dame for no reason, and that Yost was possibly the most unethical coach in the history of pre-WWII football.

Yost wasn't the biggest fan of blacks or catholics. I can't say that I've done a lot of research on primary sources myself, but I've definitely come to understand that a big reason for the UM-ND rivalry is Yost's irrational distaste for them.

John Kryk does point out in his book that there was a bitter feud going on between Yost and Rockne that lead to Yost blackballing Notre Dame in their bid to join the conference. John U Bacon references the feud in his article about the suspension of the rivalry:

None of this is particularly new, nor surprising. Yost was pretty vitriolically anti-Catholic, and had other personal issues against Notre Dame that in retrospect look small and petty. This is all well documented.

As much as we lionize Yost, it's necessary to point out he was emblematic of many of the worst prejudices of his era. Unfortunately, a lot of those things were particularly exposed in his dealings with ND.

My grandfather, who was Italian, recalled seeing burning crosses on nieghbors yards in the Italian enclave in which they lived. Next to racism anti-Catholicism was probably the most prevalent form of hatred in that time period. The KKK's popularity exploded out of a reaction to immigrants--particularly Catholic immigrants. The KKK hit its peak of 4 million members in the 20's--with many of them located in Indiana.

ND took advantage of Catholic outsider's status by selling themselves as "Catholic's team". Both of my grandparents--one Irish and the other Italian--grew up ND fans as a result.

Yost was visionary and a great football coach, but like many, he possessed appalling beliefs.

just fact-check a little? The Klan terroized both Catholics and Jews, as well as Italians. This is documented any place that any comprehensive portrait of the group has been created. From our brethren to the west:

Actually, no. The KKK frequently targeted immigrants and Catholics, especially in places where there were minimal black populations. Remember, the Klan revival in the early 20th century was somewhat different than the first Klan, which was a relatively loosely affiliated phenomenon that emerged in the Reconstruction South, then faded away.

You're assuming the Klan has been a continuous organization since its inception. It has not been so. History of the Klan divides it into three general periods: 1865-mid to late 1870s (the FIrst Klan), 1915-mid 1940s (the Second Klan) and then the more ambiguous Contemporary Klan of the 1940s to today (which itself has several different distinctions).

The Second Klan (1915-1945) was the largest of the three in terms of sheer numbers, and it counted anti-Catholicism as one of its central tenets. They organized boycotts of Catholic-owned businesses and lobbied for states to prohibit Catholics from being public school teachers (they succeeded in Texas). Here's a lovely cartoon from 1926 published in a pro-Klan publication depicting a Klansman sitting upon a dead Pope:

The two once played in Toledo, being from toledo I found that was crazy I didn't know that when I found that out a year ago.

"The game was played on a slippery white clay field at Toledo's Armory Park following a night of rain. Michigan had been heavily favored to win, and betting on the game was 2 to 1 that Notre Dame would not score.Though favored to run up a high score, Michigan scored only one touchdown and led 5-0 at the end of the first half. While Michigan won the game by a score of 23-0, Notre Dame had slowed the "Point-a-Minute" offense that had scored 315 points (almost 80 points a game) in the first four games of the 1902 season. Michigan tackle Joe Maddock was the leading scorer in the game with 15 points on three touchdowns."

if we really want to jostle over who gets to ride the moral high horse in this rivalry, let's do a tally of "non-student-athletes who died in part due to tangential involvement with some aspect of the football program under the current coach"

He's not trolling, at leat not with respect to Declan Sullivan (the student manager). It's the truth that Sullivan was a student manager, he was instructed to go up in a scissor lift on a ridiculously windy day (were the strongest gusts I've ever experienced in Chicago that day an hour or two before the incident in South Bend, which is nearby), he should've told the ND staffer he wasn't going up there, period, but went anyway because they told him they wanted him up there to film practice, tweeted both before he went up ("well, I guess today's a good day to die," or thereabouts") and moments before the wind toppled the lift over ("holy shit holy shit holy shit" or similar) which killed him, I assume via blunt force trauma. . . Personally, I don't find it tangential. And I care a hell of a lot more about what's happened recently than what happened pre-WW2. Therefore, when ND opens the door and wants to have a "moral high horse" debate, these points are relevant.

Notre Dame affacianados are quick to point to Yost's alleged bigotry, but rarely note that blacks were not welcome at ND for almost a century. The below excerpt is from an official ND website that is linked at the bottom of this post. Given this history, it is somewhat hard to accept the casual ND fan's indignation about alleged bigotry from over a century ago.

1842 - The University of Notre Dame is founded by Father Edward Sorin, CSC.

1930's

1938 - The university employs its first African-American, William Henry Alexander, who begins as a porter in a residence hall. Although there is some resistance and resentment, Alexander has the full support of Father Leonard Carrico, the director of studies.

1940's

July 1944 - Frazier Thompson ('47) enrolls at Notre Dame under the Navy's V-12 training program. According to a young priest named Theodore Hesburgh who wanted to see the enrollee succeed, Thompson perhaps was mistakenly admitted because his name did not suggest his race. When Thompson joins the track team and letters, he becomes the first Black monogram winner of the University.

April 1947 - Jackie Robinson is called up by the Brooklyn Dodgers and thereby breaks baseball's color line implemented in the 1880s.

1947 - Frazier Thompson graduates with a degree in pre-professional studies. [Note: That same year, Edward B. Williams, also an African-American, graduates from Notre Dame's school of journalism.]

1949 - The first Black student-athlete ever to try out for the football team is Aaron W. Dyson, an ex-GI from Indianola, Mississippi. Dyson regards Coach Frank Leahy as "the greatest gentleman he's ever met."

So,the first black student athlete at ND to try out for the football team did so two years after Yost died. There may have been anti-Catholic bias at work in Yost's decision making about playing Notre Dame (most likely that was down the list of reasons), but there it's a huge stretch to believe racism played a role.

The whole racist claim is a red herring, unrelated to Yost's refusal to play ND.

The fact of the matter is that most ND and Michigan fans consider the game one of their top rivalry games. Why is it only after ND breaks off the series that suddenly ND apologists are leaping through hoops and trying to pretend the rivalry is of less consequence than any other game with a B1G team and we're supposed to believe that it's just a coincidence that the one team they don't want to play anymore is the one that most regularly beats them.

There is a simple and obvious reason that ND no longer wants to keep Michigan on the schedule, and it has nothing to do what did or did not take place 80-90 years ago.

I agree with this... I just don't know why ND can't come out and tell the truth... that with 5 committed games in a BCS conference, USC being their top choice for quality OOC opponent, that they don't want to load the schedule too much with adding M on top of that.

they are essentially in a conference now and don't want to play 2 top progrmas every year in the OOC portion b/c it lowers their chances of going undefeated. End. Of. Story.

let's not get into the whole "X thing was racist 70 years ago" discussion. It only justifies ND's obsession with the political views of turn of the century football coaches. Have you seen football coaches today? I mean... yeah. Imagine them 100 years ago.

Yost knew better than to just come out and say that he hated catholics publicly, so he often accused Notre Dame of using "ringers" and felt that they got away with this because they didn't belong to a conference and therefore didn't have to comply with Big Ten rules against that sort of thing. The reality, according to most sources, though, is that Notre Dame didn't use ringers any more than most other programs, including Michigan.

What I find is that Notre Dame fans will cite that book ad nauseum when attempting to illustrate Yost's moral failings, but will deny that the book even exists when it comes to the part where a group of Michigan students essentially brought football to ND and "taught" them how to play.

You have to consider the impact of historical events; in some cases these were not mere prejudices, they arose out of very troubling times. How do things like this happen?

This was more than "I don't like you." It arose during a period of very intense religious life-and-death strife that was surprisingly recent. I'm not excusing Yost, nor is this political. I'm simply explaining historical facts.

We think of prejudices like Yost's as inappropriate, and they were and are.

But real events that took a lot of lives caused these to arise, and families don't forget. Things get passed down. There was a fear among many British subjects that they would be forced to convert back to Catholicism, and the fear was not unjustified. It did not end in 1588 when the Spanish Armada sent to invade England and reclaim it for Catholicism sank.

As recently as 1746, Great Britain was actually invaded by military forces backed by France and the Papacy, intending to restore the old monarchy of James II's heirs, and re-convert the country to Catholicism.

This was only 30 years before the founding of the US.

There is no doubt that the idea of forced conversions was sought to be prevented in the Constitution, as the fear of State religions was real.

Bonnie Prince Charlie and his invasion might have gone further if not for the Battle of Culloden. He was not unsuccessful in earlier battles, in part because the English were involved in the War of Austrian Succession.

In fact, a much larger invasion had not only been planned, but had been provisioned in France, including ships, in 1741, at Dunkirk. A terrible storm caused incredible damage to the fleet. The British called it the "Protestant Wind."

And there had been some very nasty atrocities on both sides of the Protestant-Catholic divide in England as the Reformation passed through during an earlier 100 or so year period as the religion of the monarchs went back and forth. And of course, many nastier things had taken place in Europe proper, from the Inquisition to the Thirty Years War.

These wars and turmoil affected society deeply, as one might imagine. Most early colonists were British subects, and while they revolted against rule by the Crown, an awful lot of English Protestant ideas remained ingrained in their descendants' culture.

As I said, this is not to excuse prejudice. Being Anti-Catholic in the US made no sense ever, certianly none by the late 1800s when Yost was raised, but as we have seen with Catholic/Eastern Orthodox/Islamic horrors dating back to the Turkish invasions in the 16th Century in Bosnia, and in Syria now between Islamic factions, religious wars are especially brutal, and the generations tend to repeat to themselves what happened, who did it , and to perpetuate the animosities.

I can tell you the story of my grandmother's escape from Russia during the 1905 pogroms that took place 108 years ago. I heard it first-hand. I know details. I know that people died. My children know it, too. Family stories last a very long time. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to understand how these kinds of animosities are perpetuated.

Yost was essentially the product of the 19th Century, only a little farther removed from that 1746 invasion than my kids are from my grandmother's pogroms.

We have grown as a civilization. Especially in the US, we aren't living that fear of religious war. But it was once real.

It is silly of ND fans to worry about this stuff, but the history is indeed interesting.

While it is true there is historical distrust between Protestants and Catholics stretching back centuries, it seems quite a stretch to think events from the 18th century and before were instrumental in someone like Yost being anti-Catholic, especially when there were more recent events that may have played a role. A lot of people don't realize the level of anti-immigrant bias pointed at Irish and Italian immigrants. No Irish need apply was added to many job postings in the last half of the 19th century and early 20th century. It wasn't so much overtly anti-Catholic, as it was a sterotype of drunkeness and undesireable people entering the US which did have religious overtones.

In England and Ireland, there does still remain long-standing distrust and resentment.

Certain prejudices live a long time. This is especially true of the resentments and problems caused not by job jealousy, but by death, torture and destruction of peoples' lives.

The Holocaust was 70 years ago, and we have museums dedicated to it. There was recent litigation in Europe over Swiss complicity with the fascist states in banking that is still being paid off. Will people remember it bitterly 100 years from now? I think they will.

Do I think Yost's was part of his upbringing, and brought over from England before his birth? Certainly.

Anyway, my view is based on my grandfather (who was from Kansas): his was racist and anti-Catholic (and fit the implied political affiliation above) and pro-union. The early death of his father and the Great Depression hit his family pretty hard. He left school early in high school to make ends meet. He somehow landed a job as a machinist (for Chrysler) and worked his way up on the blue collar side.

His racism was most likely from his family past (a succession of pioneering small farms stemming from NC). Both prejudices were fanned by the entry of blacks and Catholic immigrants into the work force (and blue collar neighborhoods), causing wages to stagnate similar to the work visa debate today.

Given the way of life for most Americans prior to, during and just after the Great Depression, this was literally how do I put a roof over our heads and some food on the table struggle, and it was easy to pick an us and a them in the struggle.

We tried to get him to modify his views later in life, and certainly his children and grand children were embarassed by what he said sometimes. It was hard to see him as the same person who, being the one skilled and lucky enough to get a job, was always delivering bags of groceries or other needs to less fortunate family members.

So, my conclusion is, it is an embarrassing factual part of our past that should be acknowledged and - in the light of day - not perpetuated. However, we cannot overlook the good either.

I apply this to my grandfather, Yost, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, etc.

It has generally been to my understanding that Yost wasn't as bad with religion as he was with race. The story I've heard is that he hated Notre Dame because their AD stuck his nose into some thing over rereunning a race at a track meet and he got so mad about it he swore to make sure they never got into the Big Ten when he was previously all for it and it was probably going to happen soon thereafter. Everything he said after that was pretty much gaming public opinion at the time to stick it to ND, but he was totally cool with Catholics or Jews on the team.

He definitely wasn't a fan of African Americans though, and that has been well documented.

Face it - we have a checkered past. We (the royal we, a liberty I can take since I am an alumnus) fucked over Notre Dame and MSU back in the day. The past motivates me to keep the Fighting Irish and Spartans in their place, in a much more PC way (thank you, U-M education) in the sporting venue.

The Gipp's dying request to "win one for the Gipper" never happened - Rockne made it up. Rockne wasn't ta his deathbed, the doctor who was there the one time Rockne visited said it didn't happen.

George Gipp was not a student-athlete, went an entire year without being enrolled in classes despite playing, and went 2 of 4 years at ND without any grades whatsoever. He was a drunken pool shark that gambled on ND games he played in -- older than the players he played against that passed out in the snowbank drunk fatally catching pneumonia.